


8 Ways To Say I Love You

by watanuki_sama



Category: Common Law
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Second person POV, Travis POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-04-16
Packaged: 2018-03-23 04:28:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3754588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watanuki_sama/pseuds/watanuki_sama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You should be able to say it, should be able to shout the words from the heavens and whisper it in the calm of the night. It’s just three little words. You should be able to say it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	8 Ways To Say I Love You

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by/based on the poem "8 Ways To Say I Love You" by R. McKinley.
> 
> Also posted on FF.net under the penname 'EFAW' on 04.15.15.

_“Say it deliberately, your tongue a springboard for every syllable. Do not adorn it with extra words like “I think” or “I might.” Do not sigh heavily as if admitting it were a burden instead of the most joyous thing you’ve ever done.”_  
_—R. McKinley, "8 Ways To Say I Love You"_

\---

1\. 

\---

You murmur it at midnight, phone pressed to your lips in a lover’s caress. Slur it across wires and distance to a cold machine that can only hold the words, can’t convey the meaning or the feelings you’re trying to describe.

_I love you._

The words burn on your tongue, or maybe that’s the whiskey, swallowed for courage but it doesn’t feel like courage. It feels like cowardice, to say it over the phone like this, and you take another shot and it burns on your tongue. Or maybe it’s the words.

You wake up hungover and regretful, and you stagger into work in yesterday’s clothes, rumpled and mussed and looking like the mess you feel. You wait for him to mention it, stay tense for days, but he doesn’t act like anything’s changed.

You keep waiting, and it feels like a sword is about to drop down on your neck.

\---

2\. 

\---

It falls off your tongue, breathed between the constellation of freckles on his neck. It pools in his collarbone, glides across his skin in a press of kisses, dips into his navel. _I love you. I love you. I love you._

He arches up, and you lean in to meet him, lips colliding in a gentle explosion. _I love you_ , and it passes between your mouths, sliding across your tongue to pour down his throat. If he breathes it in, maybe he’ll feel it and understand without ever hearing the words aloud.

Or maybe it’s just ecstasy and the heat of the moment, whispered into the air between you, and it doesn’t actually count.

\---

3\. 

\---

Your suit is stiff and your nice court shoes pinch the way they always do and the tie feels like it’s getting tighter and tighter around your neck. He sits there like he was made for this, as comfortable and casual as though he goes to these sorts of places every day, and it only makes you feel more like a child playing dress up and make believe.

This isn’t your kind of place, where wealth oozes from the walls and the food comes in tiny portions on tiny plates and you pay to have the waiters look down their noses at you. You’re more at home at midnight diners and mom and pop places that have stayed in the family for three generations, and dear god what are you _doing_ here? You don’t belong here.

“So what’s all this about?” he asks, somewhere between the third and fourth tiny plate.

You’re struck once again by how poised and perfect he fits in here, in this place you don’t belong, and your throat goes dry.

“I…wanted…” You swallow around the desert in your mouth and croak, “…to tell you…”

_I love you_ , but the words don’t pass your lips, strangled in your throat by the tie around your neck.

You look at him, at his face framed in the low light, and this is so _stupid_ , all the pomp and foolishness just to say something that you’ve known since the beginning. This is fit for a proposal, a big show with sweeping orchestra chords, and what you want to say is intimate and sweet and meant only for his ears.

_The movies lied to me_ , you think hysterically, they lied telling you it had to be like this, romance and wine and chocolates and flowers, but this is so stiff and formal that even if you could get the words out they would fall flat and it wouldn’t mean a thing.

He’s still watching, waiting expectantly, and you panic, because what do you say _now_ , after all of this?

“—chocolate!”

His face shutters closed, moving from expectancy to confusion. “What?”

“Chocolate. I heard there’s this chocolate cake here to _die_ for, and I really wanted to try it.” You take a swallow of your water (it does little to quench your parched throat) and wave for the waiter.

His eyes burn curious little holes in the side of your head, but you don’t turn to meet his gaze, avoiding looking at the shattered expectation you’re sure is waiting for you on his face.

\---

4\. 

\---

It eases past your lips into the midnight dreaming, _I love you_ , a vapor of thought filling the silent air with its essence. You wait until he’s asleep to say it, until his breaths even out and he goes quiet and still.

You hold him close and murmur it into his hair, letting it fall through the blonde strands to settle on his scalp like a scarf. Maybe if you breathe it onto him, coat his skin with affection, it will seep into his pores and fill him from the inside out. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

He exhales softly, shifting against your chest, and your eyes snap shut, a rough mimickry of sleep. You try to relax, try not to let your breathing give you away. You’ve done nothing wrong here, even if it feels like you’re about to be caught.

And if he heard you, if he reacted to your words, then maybe he’ll see you and think you were just talking in your sleep, whispered words to a dream he can’t see.

Maybe, maybe, maybe…

\---

5\. 

\---

You’ve just made a breakthrough in the case you’ve been working on for a month, and you’re both jumping up and down and doing stupid touchdown dances and even he’s getting into it because it’s been a _month_ , you’ve both been working your asses off at this thing and finally, _finally_ the end is in sight.

And you glance over and you see the smile on his face and the way he’s lit from the inside out and you freeze in place, caught in this glorious moment of joy, and it bubbles out of you in giddy relief, a tangle of emotions and unrestraint wrapped up in three little words and it spills out of your lips _I love you_.

He stops. You hope it was imagination, you hope it didn’t leave your lips, but he stops like the words materialized in the air and hit him like bullets, and you panic. The moment stretches on, he’s watching you with those big blue eyes and all you think is you can’t, you can’t, not yet you can’t.

“—when you’re being brilliant,” you add, the words a hasty rush and it’s so painfully _obvious_ they’re an addition, that they’re not what you meant to say. You grab his hands before he can open his mouth and you spin him and grin and act like nothing happened. Like it’s just another victory dance at the end of a long case.

You pretend it doesn’t mean anything, and you pretend you can’t feel his gaze on your back when you turn away, because if you pretend you don’t notice him watching then you can pretend he didn’t hear a thing.

\---

6\. 

\---

You decide to write it. He’s a practical man who breathes paperwork like air, he’ll appreciate it put in plain, simple words. So you sit down while he’s out shopping and you pick up the pen and put it down on paper.

I love you.

You stare at the black words, stark and bold on white and just not enough to convey what you mean. You growl, crumple it up, try again.

_I love you._

Bolder now, but still not enough. You try again, filling the paper with permutations of the same phrase.

I love you. I love you! _I love you_. **I love you**. I _love_ you. I love **you.**

With each repetition your writing gets more erratic, more desperate, until it’s nothing more than an illegible scrawl at the bottom.

That page goes into the trash too.

The problem, you decide, is that it’s not _enough_. Three words just can’t capture the depth of the feelings in your chest, bubbling up every second you’re together until you think it’s going to burst out with every thought and touch and smile like an explosion barely contained.

You’ll try a list. He likes lists. You’ll write out all the reasons you love him, lay it out and expose everything. Fill up the page so there’s no way it won’t be enough. You take a breath and start.

_Wes. I love you because:_

_Of the way you light up when you smile. How your eyes burn when you’re upset. The furrow between your brows when you’re concentrating. How you think you have rhythm but you still can’t dance. The way you wake me every morning when you sing in the shower. How you care in the most caustic way possible so no one knows. When you_

It’s too much, you can tell that before you fill half a page. All of these reasons make it sound like you’re searching for an excuse when really you’re just trying to find the words.

You chuck it in the bin, tap your pen against your lips. Maybe you’re overthinking this; maybe simpler is better.

You get a new sheet of paper, take a breath, and try one last time.

_I love you._

You stare at the words and finally growl. No, no, this just isn’t _working_. You’re a man of action, not words, words are always his thing. Why are you even trying this?

You toss it in the trash and stomp off, frustrated for reasons you can’t name.

Later, as you’re helping bring the groceries in, you notice the papers missing from the trash. You don’t say a word, wait for him to bring it up, but he doesn’t mention it.

\---

7\. 

\---

Just when you think everything is settled, there’s the loud burst of two shots in quick succession. He jerks twice and falls to the ground, and your heart stops. The other officers quickly subdue the remaining gunman, but you’re racing, running, skidding to your knees beside his prone form.

“No, baby, don’t do this, you can’t do this, I love you so you can’t do this to me,” you babble, hands frantic and shaking as your grab him and roll him over. His eyes are closed and you’re too panicked to tell if he’s breathing _oh god oh god oh god_ —

“Come on baby, _please!_ ” You rip the vest away, pound on his chest. His eyes snap open with a curse, and he sputters, and you don’t breathe until you see him do it too.

“The _hell_ , Travis?” he gasps, curling onto his side. His hands wrap around his ribs—they’ll be bruised for a week, but at least they _will_ bruise.

You drop your head to your knees and clutch his hand in your own. “Oh thank god, thank god, I love you so much, you don’t get to do that to me. Don’t _do_ that!”

You lay there, trembling by his side until the paramedics come up to check you both out. Even when you’ve been cleared, you don’t let him out of your sight.

Because you had a vision, a terrible glimpse of what it would be like to live without him. To go through every day without your partner by your side, and it terrifies you, it makes you cold right down to your core. The thought of going through the world without him is like imagining a world without color, without sunlight, without smiles. Liveable, but hardly _bearable_ , and it leaves you shaky and weak, and you don’t even want to _think_ about it.

Later, when you’re safe at home, your hands still tremble when you think about it, and you hold him close and whisper into his hair, _I love you, I love you, I love you_ , a constant affirmation of fear and need and desperation, a reassurance that he’s here and he’s not going anywhere.

\---

8\. 

\---

It happens in the morning, as you’re both getting ready. He’s at the sink, brushing his teeth for the second time (because he’s a weirdo who brushes his teeth before eating as well as after), and you’re hit with such a rush of affection you can’t contain it. It fills you up, spreading from your center to the tips of your fingers and toes until you think it must be shining out of your eyes and ears and mouth like sunbeams, until you are, for a moment, nothing _but_ love for him, your entire existence compounded into this one feeling, and that’s when it happens. Your open your mouth, you’re just going to ask him to move so you can slip by, and the words leap out, jumping off your tongue like they have a life of their own.

_I love you._

The toothbrush stops moving, and his eyes meet yours in the mirror, and he makes a garbled questioning sound. Everything goes still, and it’s like the entire world is holding its breath.

You have a moment of panic—what if it was a fluke? What if you try to say it again and it doesn’t work and you have to watch the hope in his eyes die?

But you swallow your nerves and you open your mouth and there’s no hesitation, the words come out as easy as the first time. Easier, even, as though the first saying smoothed the way, unstopping the gap and making the rest flow out effortlessly.

_I love you._

Slowly, he lowers the toothbrush, turns on the faucet. He rinses first the brush, then his mouth, and the entire time his eyes never leave yours in the glass, and you can’t even think of looking away.

When he finally turns to you, he leans against the counter, calm and casual, except his hands are gripping the edge like he has to brace himself. Or hold himself back, you’re not sure.

“Say it again,” he whispers, a hoarse croak. You think this shouldn’t be so monumental, except it is. You’ve never said those words to anyone, so the fact you can say them to _him_ means everything, and you both know it.

“I love you.” And it comes out easy as breathing, like you’ve been saying it every moment of every day since you were born. There’s no hesitation, no fear, not even a trickle of worry at his reaction because you’re baring your soul and you know he’ll accept it.

You watch him light up, radiant and ecstatic, and you wonder if this is how you look when you look at him, as if every cell in your body is simply glowing with love and you couldn’t keep it hidden even if you tried.

He leaps into your arms, and he’s laughing as he kisses you, but you understand. It’s a giddy, heady feeling, like you’d float into the sky if the ceiling wasn’t keeping you in.

And then he pulls back, and he says the one thing that could possible make this moment better.

“I love you too.”


End file.
